ALAMEDA — When Derek Carr heard before the regular-season opener the Raiders were to receive the opening kickoff if they won the coin toss, it registered as unusual for an instant before he refocused on the task at hand.

“I thought, `That’s odd. We usually defer, ‘ ” Carr said.

Usually?

Coach Jack Del Rio had won the coin toss 19 times through his first two seasons with the Raiders, and 19 times he had deferred, giving the other team first choice and insuring possession of the ball to start the second half.

Throw in two more deferrals in the four games in which he was interim head coach of the Denver Broncos in 2013 and Del Rio had deferred in 21 straight games in which he won the toss.

As it turns out, the last time Del Rio won the toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff was his final game as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011.

The Jaguars had the first possession, didn’t score, lost the game, and Del Rio was fired with a 3-8 record two days later. Conventional wisdom has it the results were not related.

Del Rio’s out of character deferral may have lacked the drama of the decision to go for two points and the win a year ago against New Orleans in Week 1, but its significance in a 26-16 win over Tennessee was clear.

The Titans opened with an onsides kick, which Raiders rookie Shalom Luani recovered. It set up Carr and Co. with a first-down at the 50-yard line. The Raiders scored in four plays on an 8-yard pass from Carr to Amari Cooper and never trailed.

Attempts to get Del Rio’s thinking on the deferral were fruitless. Del Rio regards divulging even minuscule strategy as if it were a nuclear launch code. The New York Jets are in town Sunday and looking for any morsel of information to ruin the Raiders. Neither the head coach nor special teams coach Brad Seely would comment.

The reasons to get the ball first in Tennessee seemed clear enough.

The Raiders’ first-team defense struggled with opening possessions in the exhibition season. If Del Rio deferred and form held, the Titans could drive the field, take a 7-0 lead and put the home crowd in a frenzy.

As it turned out, the Titans did drive the length of the field on their first possession, going 75 yards in 12 plays with Marcus Mariota scoring on a 10-yard run. All it did was tie the score.

Second, there is an explosive new return specialist in Cordarrelle Patterson, whose face lit up in a smile when informed Del Rio had never before elected to receive the opening kickoff as coach of the Raiders.

Patterson said Seely made the Raiders consider the possibility of trickery during the week. At one point, there was an onsides kick which the receiving team was not prepared for and the kicking team recovered.

“That made us more ready,” Patterson said. “You never know what’s going to happen in this league.”

Del Rio, it should be noted, is not a control freak when it comes to random chance. Captains confirm he allows players on the field the latitude to call heads or tails.

According to a 2016 story in Monday Morning Quarterback, teams that won the toss were deferring at a rate of 82.5 percent. In Week 1 this season, four of 15 coin-toss winners elected to receive. New England coach Bill Belichick has deferred all but two times since 2008, the year the NFL instituted the college system instead of just the straight selection of kicking off or receiving.

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Del Rio chose to receive at a greater rate in Jacksonville than with Oakland, taking the ball to start the game seven times since 2008 and deferring 27 times.

Seely, when allowed to discuss strategy, explained to MMQB in 2016 deferring was preferred because it provided a chance for consecutive possessions to close the first half and open the second.

“That’s what everybody wants,” Seely said. “You get a two-minute drive at the end of the first half and you get the ball to start the second half.”

Fullback and core special teams player Jamize Olawale, who watched the game from home since he was injured and not traveling, said the coin toss wasn’t mentioned on the telecast and was surprised to learn Del Rio had chosen to receive.

“I didn’t know that,” Olawale said. “I guess he wanted the element of surprise. And it was the right call.”